


Invisibility

by KickAir 8P (KickAir8P)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-24
Updated: 2006-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KickAir8P/pseuds/KickAir%208P
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Safety lay here, in places like this, where I could be invisible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisibility

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this early in 2001. I'd discovered fanfic thanks to HL: Endgame (shudder!), and I was just bubbling over with ideas. This was going to be the first of a series of stories, but then I became somewhat more familiar with the concept of a "Mary Sue". Still, it didn't go to far toward the Bad Place, so I thought I'd dust it off and post it.
> 
> Beta'd a bit by unmisha in 2001 before I stopped working on it -- all the screw-ups are my fault.

  
**1849, Bydgoszcz**   


I was where I always was that time of day, the lucrative spot I sometimes had to fight the other beggars for. They thought it was generous of me to leave it to them when the crowds thinned out. And money-wise, I could easily afford to be generous – I’d “inherited” the results of hundreds of years of investments, monies my lawyers were handling for me and my “descendants”. It was amazing what a little Quickening-borne knowledge, a few forged documents, the right accoutrements, and a winsome smile could get you.

Yes, I could live in luxury if I wished, but not in safety. Not even Holy Ground was safe for me. I’d stayed there for hundreds of years, bricked up in a little cell in the wall, fed by sisters who died too fast to question how long the Penitent had been there. Then one day a “priest” came, who told the sisters my piety had caught the Bishop’s attention and I was to be brought to him. My pleas were ignored, my cell was breached, and I was dressed in a fresh robe and bundled into his carriage.

He assumed I was helpless. He was almost right.

Safety, such as it was, lay here, in places like this, where I could be invisible.

And that invisibility was being tested this day, by the chance-met Immortal across the room. Not hunting, he actually seemed to be there to catch a train. All too eager, though. He turned slowly, scanning the bustling little train station, making no secret of it. Since that didn’t work, he started walking around the perimeter of the waiting room. It wasn’t a big room, and I knew that even if I was sitting in the corner my Presence nearly filled it – he’d get no clue from that.

With the weather as nasty as it was that day, no one was out on the platform, even with the train due in a few minutes. Still, he went out the far door to check. Through the windows I could see him pace toward me on the other side of the wall, and stop near the door I was sitting next to. He was facing away from me when he said it:

“I’m Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Show yourself!”

Of course there was no response, and he stalked back into the station in a huff. There was no help for it – my invisibility came at a price, and the instant I behaved out of character I’d be exposed. So I scooted forward and tugged at his pants leg. “Please, kind sir, spare a few pence.....”

If he’d looked down he would’ve seen a filthy, crippled beggar-boy on a wheel-board, bare legs gone below the knees, hands outstretched and pleading for just a few coins. But he didn’t look down, he just reached into his pocket and tossed the results behind me in a jingling little cascade, forcing me to scramble for them while I babbled effusive praises to his generosity.

Then the floor started to shake in sympathy with the rumble coming up in the distance, and a fourth of the room was up and moving. I watched him consider it – judging by the number of people about to make the train, high chance was the Immortal he’d been sensing would be staying at the station. But that was the train he was here for, so he headed for the platform again, going out the far door to avoid the annoying beggar. A few minutes later and the train was leaving the station, and his Presence faded from my mind.

~~~~~

  
**1998, outside Bucharest**   


I didn’t know what I was going to do. There were still places like this in the world, but they were getting harder and harder to find. Social consciousness had been rising steadily, and even in the most squalid little town there always seemed to be someone who wanted to “help” me so I wouldn’t have to beg for a living, or get me into a wheelchair at the very least.

And I **_hated_** wheelchairs: too far from the ground, too unstable, too vulnerable. Every decade or so I got cleaned up, dressed up, and into one, just so I could meet with my lawyers and reassure them that I (as one of my own descendants) was still alive. Then I got back into my rags and onto my wheel-board as fast as I could possibly manage it.

But the world was changing, and my invisibility was being destroyed.

The television bolted high on the wall had been showing obscure sporting events for hours – American sports, from a satellite broadcast. Once again, the meddlers’ penchant for helping the helpless raised its ugly head, and I was actually watching a wheelchair race. Nice equipment – the wheels were canted for both greater stability on the turns and to put the upper curve right under the hands, giving better leverage and speed. Very sleek, and very noticeable. Coming up next was the hundred-yard “dash”.....

Everything around me faded as I stared at the woman speeding across the screen. There was no awkwardness, no thump-and-push in her gait. She flowed, she flew, she ran like a gazelle. And below her knees were these metal strips, **_nothing_** like feet, gracefully curving down to the tiny pads that touched the ground.

If she could run on those, so could I. And maybe even fight. If so, I might actually have a chance.....

Time to contact my lawyers again, and put some of that fortune of mine to use.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired in part by Jami Goldman's Adidas commercial in 1999.
> 
> Comments also welcome at [kickair8p.dreamwidth.org/27628.html](http://kickair8p.dreamwidth.org/27628.html)


End file.
